Majed TbeilehNablus Youth Federation, The Future Generation Hands Committee |
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“ As a Palestinian association, we are caught in the middle. As the saying goes, “The enemy is ahead of you and the sea is behind you.” We have been working for nine years and still don't have an official license from the Palestinian Authority. This is a problem. We tried to use our contacts to obtain an official license, but we didn't manage to achieve it. There is no problem in finding funding for joint work with the Israelis; the Israeli organizations receive the funding and provide for our side of it. A Palestinian organization aiming to do joint work with Israelis cannot get funding on it's own because it cannot get licensed, even with clear objectives. We appealed to the PA many times, but their terms for a license and funding required that we stop working with the Israelis. ” [Source in Complete Interview]
Community Responses to Peace Work:
“ Currently, the Palestinian street rejects us. Despite this, we hold meetings every week, and the number of our members has grown from 750 before the intifada to 1500 today. If we held a concert, 5000 people would attend. We make it clear that we have meetings with the Israelis-- it is published on our website. […] As the executive committee of the federation, we are convinced of the importance of what we are doing. Still, when I walk through the city I expect to be harmed at any moment. I work in a city that hasn’t yet fully recognized that there should be dialogue in addition to the military struggle. ” [Source in Complete Interview]
“ In the current situation, the conflict, in which children face tanks and are sometimes caught in the middle of the armed struggle, we forget that children are still children despite the tragedy. We should enable children to enjoy their childhood as much as possible so that they won’t become violent in the future, not in terms of political violence only but in terms of domestic violence as well. Many Palestinian children who grow up in this situation become violent domestically. Personally, I am more concerned about the issues of youth and children than about the other issues I mentioned. ” [Source in Complete Interview]
“ I was a member of a political organization during the first intifada, and was known for being involved in resistance, throwing stones and so on. I think that you learn more from experience than from universities and schools. For 50 years, the Palestinians have been convinced that the Israeli state, the Hebrew state, is going to vanish. […]I have reached the conclusion that the only way for us to end the occupation of 1967 is through dialogue. The armed resistance was not able to rescue us, to end the occupation. ” [Source in Complete Interview]
Media and Suicide Bombing:
“ Today there is awareness about the Palestinian situation around the world. This happened despite the Israeli efforts to limit media coverage to bombings. But I think that those bombings helped the Palestinian people; those didn’t happen out of the blue. The Palestinians have succeeded in influencing the Israelis to the extent that they want to withdraw from the 1967 areas so that the bombings will stop. There are means that we should use as Palestinians. I never reject or condemn the nationalist and military operations or call them terrorism. In fact, it is the opposite. I call these operations heroic because they forced the Israelis to recognize the borders of 1967. This is an issue I am not willing to yield on. I still think that we should hold meetings and dialogue with the Israelis and the rest of the world. This might sound like a contradiction. ” [Source in Complete Interview]
Vision and Self Determination:
“ I think that the most important thing for us as Palestinians and as youth is to recognize that there are two countries for two people. This is the first step to ending the conflict. We live a life of occupation and closure, and when we visit Jordan or another country we feel that it is a different world. We should be able to manage our own affairs and have our own agenda and not rely on the help of other countries. We want Jerusalem to be the capital of the Palestinian state, and we won’t accept the criticism from other Arab nations about our handling of this issue, because they are not living in the same hard conditions that we live in. Palestinian youth should not leave their homeland and seek a life abroad. They should stay in Palestine, withstand the situation, and seek peace as a means of improving their lives in Palestine. ” [Source in Complete Interview]
“ It is possible to have a dialogue with an educated person and convince him even if he has an opposite ideology, but an ignorant person might just pull out a gun and shoot you in accusation of betrayal. Another challenge is our encounters with Israeli forces. If I am caught in the Israeli territories, I will serve six months in prison because I don’t have a permit. Despite all the challenges, I personally feel obliged to perform my role in this battle. ” [Source in Complete Interview]
Community Responses to Peace Work and Family:
“ I was married and was forced to divorce because I couldn’t continue with my work while I was married. My work had a negative affect on my wife even though she used to work with me. Today, I think that I will be forced to marry somebody from outside Nablus, because I will not find the woman I want in Nablus. That is because the community doesn’t accept my work. The community is afraid of my work with the Israelis. ” [Source in Complete Interview]
“ A bigger victory is achieved when we succeed in convincing the Israelis that only by achieving peace will they be able to achieve security. They mustn’t think that there could be security without peace. They can see that we were able to come and attend the meetings here in the NSWAS even without permits. So if a Palestinian is able to reach them be for peaceful purposes, he will also be able to reach them for harmful purposes. That is why I think the millions of dollars spent on the separation wall are a waste, because no matter what, we will find a way. Look at us now, we are a group of thirty people that got out of Nablus without permits, we didn’t care if we had to climb over mountains for hours to get here. We had to reach them. They need to know that the security that the checkpoints provide is an illusion because if someone wants to carry out an operation and blow himself up, he will find a way. ” [Source in Complete Interview]
Obstacles and Challenges and Freedom:
“ There is a group of Palestinians and Israelis that are planning to meet in Europe. The Israelis reach the airport in two hours, and after a few hours on the plane they reach Europe. The Palestinians are forced to wake up at four in the morning. They reach the checkpoint in Hawara at seven or eight o’clock. When they reach the border crossing in Jericho they are searched by the Palestinian police who pass them on to the Israelis. The Israelis decide who can cross into Jordan and who can’t. You can do nothing without Israeli approval -- it is beyond our control. The Jordanians may also refuse your entrance as one now needs a permit to enter Jordan. The whole journey will take you about 48 hours, while it takes the Israelis only a few hours. ” [Source in Complete Interview]
Fear:
“ I think that every side has its own fears. The Palestinians don’t fear violence and arrests. The Israelis are very afraid of the suicide bombings. Many Palestinians don’t fear death, because they don’t feel they are alive anyway. ” [Source in Complete Interview]
“ A Palestinian might spend four months digging a tunnel, [to smuggle weapons] whereas someone else would not dig that much even if there was a treasure buried underneath. He just wants his state. On the other hand, another Palestinian walks for eight hours to get to a meeting with Israelis even if the Israeli government won’t allow him. That one too wants a state. This determination is due to the Palestinian desire for a state. The two streams use different methods but have the same goal. ” [Source in Complete Interview]
“ I started to see the importance of having meetings with the Israelis in 2001, especially after the invasion of Nablus in 2002 because I realized that even if we manage to destroy a tank here or explode a bomb there, we still don’t have the military capacity to stop an Israeli invasion. The only way to cause the Israelis to withdraw to the 1967 borders is through political dialogue. ” [Source in Complete Interview]
“ I reached the conclusion that throwing a stone won’t get me a state, nor will carrying a gun. I will give you an example. The first intifada lasted for seven years, but it didn't have as huge an impact as the second intifada. There wasn’t as much support or as many demonstrations around the world for the Palestinians as there was this time. I will explain why I think so. During the first intifada, Palestinians used stones and basic tools to protest, whereas the weapons used in the second intifada took the form of resistance to the next level. Also, the number of victims among Palestinians and Israelis was much higher. Keep in mind that the first intifada mostly happened in Palestinian towns and cities, so the Israeli public wasn’t directly affected by it and therefore didn’t pay attention to the Palestinian suffering. In contrast, subsequent suicide bombings inside Israel caused a change in the Israeli mainstream and some began to call for dismantling settlements and giving the Palestinians what they want so they [the Israelis] could spare themselves the headache. ” [Source in Complete Interview]
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